The Story of a Hypnotist

Dr. Franz J. Polgar was born in Hungary and served as an officer in the Hungarian Army. During World War I a shell exploded near him and buried him under dirt and rock for three days. He suffered from amnesia and aphasia as a result, and during his recovery, he asserted, he came to realize that he possessed special mental abilities.

While gaining doctorates in psychology and economics, he studied hypnotism and the power of suggestion as a tool to help others. He had served as Sigmund Freud's "medical hypnotist" (Polgar's term) in 1924 and had worked in close association with Freud for six months and had assisted in the treatment of Freud's patients.

This is his story from his early days in Hungary and his pursuit of the power of hypnotism to his days as a lecturer and performer in the United States.

He made his mark by putting more than a million persons to sleep, according to his own estimate. He hypnotized more than 500 women, including his wife, to bring about painless childbirth without anesthetics. He once memorized an entire magazine in a single sitting, and was said to have used telepathy to find objects hidden miles away.